The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) invites you to
join the Friends of the SEP Society. By paying modest,
annual membership dues to join the Society, members are
entitled to receive certain benefits. During the year their
membership is valid, members can access and download very high quality
PDF (Portable Document Format, a.k.a. Acrobat) versions of SEP
entries. The SEP has a comprehensive
PDF Library of its entries,
and after each quarterly SEP Archive is made, members can access the
new PDFs that we generate for those entries that have been published
or revised in any way during the previous 3 months. Student and
Associate Members may download up to five different entries in any
24-hour period, whereas Professional Members have no daily limits.
The members-only pages keep track of your download history, and
members can ‘opt-in’ to receive an email notification from
us, sent once every 3 months, informing them about any PDFs they've
downloaded that have been updated in the most recent quarterly SEP
Archive. Members may receive other benefits should these become
available.

The SEP is currently under-funded and therefore needs to develop
sources of income that are consistent with its being an open access
publication. We hope that readers who both value the careful layout of
our PDFs and applaud our efforts to make high-quality academic content
freely available worldwide will support our endeavors by joining the
Society. But in addition to raising funds, it is our goal to build a
sense of community among readers who value the SEP project for the
role it plays in the profession and the public at large.
The Friends of the SEP Society therefore offers our readers a
chance to become affiliated with the SEP community.

The PDF versions of SEP entries are generated from the HTML
source using professional typographic software so as to achieve a
high-quality visual appearance when displayed or printed. For example,
our PDFs are formatted in two wide-column landscape mode, use a nice
font, have right- and left-justified paragraphs, and are optionally
formatted in US Letter and A4 paper sizes, and in Single-Column
half-sheets. By contrast, our HTML entries display by default in a
single column and print by default in portrait mode, with ragged-right
edges.

Some web browsers don't support the mathematical, logical, and
special Unicode characters we use in our HTML documents. But our PDF
versions embed all of these special characters in the document.

The PDF versions combine all of the documents, such as footnotes
and supplements, that may be associated with an entry into a single
(printable) file. Thus, a single file can be stored for offline
viewing (when you are not connected to the Internet). By contrast,
the footnotes and supplementary documents in the HTML versions of SEP
entries have to be viewed (printed) separately, and for some entries,
you have to separately download and store all these files and all the
graphics if you want to be able to view the file when you are offline,
disconnected from the Internet.

This single file format (described in the previous bullet point)
for entries may be particularly useful for storing, accessing, and
reading on mobile devices. We recommend using our single-column
half-sheet PDFs for such devices for easier reading on smaller
displays. See the SEP FAQ
V.3
and
V.4
which explain how to download
and view our single-column half-sheet PDFs on a Kindle and an iPhone,
respectively. (You are welcome to write to us with information about
how to view single-column PDFs on other mobile devices, so we can
include that information.)

Since the content of PDF versions is generated from the HTML
versions of entries held in recent SEP Archives, they (as well as
those archived HTML versions) can be used as the source of quotations
and for citation purposes. Please follow the
PDF Citation
guidelines. By contrast, the ‘active’ HTML
versions of SEP entries are not appropriate for citation, since they
might be updated or otherwise revised at any time.

The PDF versions include a titlepage that displays (at the top)
the URL that forms part of the proper citation information. If the
PDF is printed, this information stays with the printed document. By
contrast, the HTML versions of SEP entries have no titlepages, and
when printed, no URL is included with the printed document (unless
your browser supplies it). Instead the HTML versions contain a link to
a page that shows the proper citation information.

For purposes of security, the Friends of the SEP Society office does
not store credit card information. Please do not send your credit
card information by email, phone, or letter.
To become a member, you must follow
the link to join the Society and complete the secure online payment
process.

The SEP would like to thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
for providing most of the funds used to build the Friends of the
SEP Society website. We'd also like to thank
Paul Daniell
for the programming excellence he demonstrated in developing this site.